Hang it Out....

One of the things I managed to get done this week (my list was long, but that's a post for a different day.. tomorrow perhaps) was to tighten up my clothes line. Today, which is one of my laundry days, happened to be a perfect day to hang clothes out on the line. It was warm, but more than that, it was breezy.

The first hang of the season. I actually hummed as I hung out the wash. I love my clothes line. I got it for Mother's day a bunch of years ago (yes, I asked for it) and I have enjoyed it more than I could begin to tell you. Except for last year. There was so much house working going on (roof, clapboard, painting) that I barely used it at all. And I missed it. A lot.

There's something about hanging your clothes out to dry that soothes your soul the way that enjoying a cup of hot tea while you watch the snow fall does. It's a chore that millions of women before me have done since, well, they began wearing clothes. Generations of women, united in one simple act. Taking care of the ones they love.

J is for..

J is for judgemental. Which I am not. Or I thought I wasn't.. until today.

Have you heard this?? Can you believe, that in the good ole United States of America.. someone had the gall to change the Star Spangled Banner into spanish??

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against spanish speaking people. I'm not even on that "let's kick the illegals out of the country" bandwagon. But, I have to agree with the boy on this one (gawd, if he hears this his head will get even bigger).. if you are going to live in the United States, you should speak the language. Learn English. We shouldn't have to change everything to suit your needs. You are in OUR country.. learn to speak OUR language. I shouldn't have to learn a new language just so I can understand you.

And Dubya... (man I must be sick.. feverish even).. said the best thing I've heard since 9/11 when he spoke to the nation..

With passions running high over the release of "Nuestro Himno," a Spanish-language version of the national anthem, Bush told reporters that people who want to be citizens of the United States should learn English and "ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."

Well said George. Well said.

Swarming... what?!?

This does not make me happy. In fact, it makes me very unhappy. I went up to take a shower this afternoon (love being home and able to shower when I feel like it), and this is what I discovered on my bathroom window.

A little peering underneath the window sill (which isn't nailed down for some reason) confirmed my suspicions that there were more. As dealing with flying insects isn't in MY job description, we've left them for the boy to handle when he gets home. I have a feeling after all these years we are going to have to have our house sprayed this year. That makes me sad. I have pesticide issues (and no I don't fertilize my lawn either) and the thought of poisoning my family and pets is very unsettling.

Wednesday is for...

Wednesday is for Randomness...and boy do I ever have some. First, I present to you the sock from hell. I love the yarn, I love the design on the cuff.. I hate the pattern. I was a little concerned yesterday after I turned the heel, that it seemed sort of short. Not the cuff, the heel. So today, I attempted to try it on my foot. The spacing of the needles is perfect to put a foot through. Unless it turns out, that your sock is too small and you didn't realize. Look closely at the photo. See that triangle kind of thing going on?? That's my broken DPN. Thankfully Brittany will replace it, and mail me a new one. But I'm unhappy. These socks, going to the frog pond. The yarn will become new socks. Perhaps I'll just follow Wendy's great toe up pattern, and do the stitch pattern for this cuff on the new ones.

Back Away....

Drop the remote, and back away from the TV. I feel like I should print this on a sign, or make a wall hanging of some sort, and plaster it onto the door of the boy's office. My remote basket, is stuffed. It now houses 5 remotes. Every time I turn around, something else is coming into my house that has a remote.

The remote for the TV, I get that. All TV's come with a remote. The DVD player has it's own remote. Fine. I don't see why it can't just be a universal remote, but I'm ok with that too. Then we got Direct TV. Another remote. I thought, Great, we can put the TV remote away. But no. There is some feature that you need the TV remote for.

Vacation.. have to get awayyyyyyyy

Ahhhh, spring break. Nothing like a whole glorious week off from work.

Unless of course it rains, a lot, and while this is fine and dandy and all, you wanted to finish raking your yard. (*side note, I did get several hours in after lunch today before it started to rain, again.).

And unless of course your stupid knee, which has been a pain in your arse since HS and has been causing you all manners of grief these past few months, has an issue that leaves you sitting with it up most of Monday. Thankfully today it's much better, but that depends on your definition of better. The boy doesn't consider it better. I consider that I can walk normally again without too much of a limp better. So I'll settle.. it's back to being its usual pain in the arse self.

It's Raining on my Parade

I suppose that we needed this rain. The news reports have been littered with brush fires and house fires and fire warnings and alerts. My list of things I wanted to get done this weekend... I haven't been able to check one thing off. Actually, two things can be done, but one of them involves more than just me and so I've moved it till tomorrow.

I just checked the forecast for the rest of the week...and it's not looking too good. I think I'll just start my spring cleaning.

As quoted from WMUR news:

Huzzah!

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

What European City Do You Belong In?

I is for....

I is for.. Image.

As in self image. Of which most of my life I have had a poor one. I never felt pretty when I was growing up. I always had plain clothes, and plain hair, and all my friends were prettier than I was.
Then I had a life trauma that caused my self image to go right down the drain. At the same time, I was developing. I was the only girl in the 6th grade with large ladies, and I hated it. I started wearing big shirts, and baggy everything.
Have you ever watched What Not To Wear? They show you how wearing big baggy clothes makes you look awful. It's true. And when you see yourself looking awful like that it doesn't help your self image any. I wore long shirts to swim over my suit, I wore tee shirts all summer because I didn't like tanks, I wore long shorts and baggy sweatshirts and I was.. well.. frumpy.

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time." ~J. Lubbock

Tomorrow is our last day of school before spring break. It really can't get here soon enough. I don't know if we have bad karma, or negative energy, or perhaps it's just that the whole damn place has gone insane... but the tension in our school building is so thick right now you could cut it with a knife. I had to retreat to the third floor yesterday afternoon after I'd met with my last group of students, to pow-wow with my friend, because I couldn't take the tension and grouchiness that was going on all around me.

Spittin' Mad

Some things I learned on our field trip yesterday to the Sweet Maple Alpaca Farm:

1. Always check your memory stick before you leave home. I left mine AT home. Thankfully I had my film camera, and was able to take photos. However, I had to wait to get them developed to share them with you. Forgive the crappy photo quality, as it is a digital picture of an actual photograph.

2. As much as I enjoy where we go, and the day out of school, I don't enjoy field trips. Actually, it's not the field trip itself that I don't enjoy. I hate the bus ride. The bus ride there isn't too bad... it's the bus ride home. I think I blogged about this last year. Ah-hah, I knew it. Read right here, my thoughts on last year's field trip. They haven't changed. Kids are pretty good on the way to where we go. They are excited, how long will it take, what will we see, what will we do when we get there? Then they do the thing, and they have to GO.BACK.HOME. And they are annoying and loud and obnoxious and a billion other adjectives that describe awful. I was so exhausted last night, that after my kids went to bed, I feel asleep on the couch. Out. Like. A. Light. I had a great time, but I'm glad it's over. No more bus rides until next year.

oh??

We Do Beth Right.

Click here, then take out my name and add your own.

Stuck in a Moment....

I'm not afraid
Of anything in this world
There's nothing you can throw at me
That I haven't already heard

I feel like I expect too much of people. Actually, I don't feel like this at all. I tend to think that my expectations of people are pretty low. I don't want it all. I don't even want most of it. I just want some basics. A little love, a little respect, companionship. I don't ask for fancy things, or jewels.. I don't want the world. I want to be treated with the same level of decency that everyone else wants.

Happy Easter

I was sitting in church tonight, the night of the Easter Vigil, and my priest was talking about how spring is a period of re-birth. (Our priest is an elderly man, who reminds me a grandfather. He's been doing this priest thing a long time, and he's a little on the blunt and "real" side. He tells it how it is, even if it's a little shocking to hear in a church, or coming from a priest. We're going to loose him to restructuring and our church isn't going to be the same without him. Anyhow, back to the re-birth. ) He went on to talk about daffodil's, and buds on trees, and how everywhere you look the land is being reborn, and that is why we celebrate Easter in the spring.

It's no secret to the few of you who read my blog that I love spring. For this same reason. I love watching the buds bloom open on the tree outside my window, and the plants push their way out of the ground and grow towards the warm sun. I love the smell of warm sun and lilacs and enjoy the mundane tasks that come along with spring, such as washing windows and raking. I feel like I'm cleaning away winter and making room for spring.

H is for.....

Happiest Childhood Memories

Some discussion has been going around work, about happy childhood memories. I don't know what it is about spring that makes people want to share their happy memories, but here we are. People are laughing and remembering, and I am kind of slinking away into the shadows a little bit. No one wants to hear my childhood memories.

Memories that involve a father who could've cared less that he had 5 children, and took his wife for granted and then after years of misery and fighting told her he wanted a divorce on the day her only daughter moved out. No one wants to hear that he made her go back to work when the children were in elementary school, and the oldest of the group.. me.. was left to take care of 4 brothers, make sure homework was done and start dinner every night. Memories that hide painful secrets, and poor self esteem and fears and about a million other dark and dismal feelings. No one. I may have had a better childhood than some, and some parts of it might have been ok, but mostly I don't like to talk about it. I've done a pretty good job of "getting over it" and I try to keep it buried where it belongs.. in the past.

Random Wednesday

Wait..what?!?! It's not Wednesday??? Well... too darn bad! Here's some random things.

1. You should NOT, I repeat, NOT drink beer on an empty stomach when you are trying to type up minutes for a meeting that you have much later on in the day. While a beer after work might sound like a good idea, when you get home before dinner and it's been a long time since lunch.. not so good. The scary part is that it's light beer. Nuff said.

2. I had a 2. Wait, it's coming. Nope. I seem to have lost it.

Like an Ocean

"Where are you going, with your beautiful face looking down
Don’t hide away
You are like an ocean
That I can’t see, but I can smell and the sound
Of your waves coming down"

Every time I hear this Dave Mathew's song, I am taken away. Taken several hours away in fact to
my favorite spot in the state. Hampton Beach. Before we moved to "the other side of the world", we lived about an hour and a half away from the beach. (Not that we could ever get there that quick, but still... it was nice.) When I was growing up we used to go to the beach with my mom and her best friend. We'd all pack into the station wagon, or the car, and spend the day playing in the surf and sand.

Nothing a little Snoopy won't fix....

I found this quote today, and as it seemed to be fitting for a bunch of different reasons, I saved it.

" Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak; sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go." ~Author Unknown

I feel beaten. Like I'm fighting a battle with life, and the score is life: xxxx, me: 0. I shouldn't feel this way. Winter is over. We have made it passed the dreaded clock change, and spring is in the air. I saw lilac buds and smelled warmth today on my walk. The robins are playing in the yard (and mating as well much to my dismay) and the sun is staying in the sky longer each day. But I feel winters dreariness lingering in my soul. Like a visitor who has overstayed their welcome, and just won't go home.

Lil Humor

I did a little google-wacking to ward of the "grouchy around the edges" feeling that is lingering on (damn hormones), and turned up this little gem. Enjoy!

(click on the rabbit photo to get a pattern to knit your own bunny)

All I Need to Learn about Life I learned from the Easter Bunny!

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Walk softly and carry a big carrot. Everyone needs a friend who is all ears. There's no such thing as too much candy. All work and no play can make you a basket case. A cute little tail attracts a lot of attention. Everyone is entitled to a bad hare day. Let happy thoughts multiply like rabbits. Some body parts should be floppy. Keep your paws off other people's jellybeans. Good things come in small-sugarcoated packages. The grass is greener in someone else's basket. An Easter bonnet can cover the wildest hare. To show your true colors you have to come out of the shell. The best things in life are still sweet and gooey.

Say What?!

This arived in my email box last night:

Greetings from Amazon.com and Toysrus.com. We have recently learned that Rose Art Industries Inc. is voluntarily recalling all Magnetix Magnetic Building Sets. It has been determined that the tiny magnets inside the plastic building pieces and rods can fall out. Magnets found by young children can be swallowed or aspirated. If more than one magnet is swallowed, the magnets can attract to each other and cause intestinal perforation or blockage, which can be fatal. Our records indicate that you have purchased a Magnetix Magnetic Building set through the co-branded Amazon.com / Toysrus.com web site and are therefore affected by this recall. At this time, Rose Art Industries Inc. asks consumers to stop using the magnetic sets and return the sets to Rose Art for a free replacement product suitable for young children under the age of six. Consumers should keep all small magnet parts out of the hands of children who mouth objects, especially children under the age of three. Rose Art can be contacted by calling (800) 779-7122 between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or by visiting Rose Art's web site at www.roseart.com. You may find additional details about the recall in the CPSC bulletin at: CPSC News Bit... click here

LOL!

so fitting...

You Are Italian Food

Comforting yet overwhelming. People love you, but sometimes you're just too much.

What Kind of Food Are You?

G is for....

G is for... Grumpy.

According to Dictionary.com.. Grumpy is an adjective meaning: Surly and peevish. Cranky.

Adjectives for this word are; Crabby, cross, grouchy, ill-tempered, irritable.

I like peevish. Surly is good too. A rough definition of surly as an adjective, states it is "an ugly frame of mind."

Ugly is how my mood feels. I can almost feel it radiating off of my face. My skin oozes with ill-temperedness. I feel short and snappy and downright rotten. I am in a rotten mood.

I didn't start out this way. Although, after the week I had it would be warranted. I was at school until 8pm Monday night, got pulled out to run the book fair all afternoon Wed, then again most of the day yesterday. I was already scheduled to work at it last night, but then didn't get out till 8pm again. And to add insult to injury, I had to go back to school today, on my day off, for CPR from 11-5. All this considered I was in a pretty good mood.

Sweet Land of Liberty

They thought it was beneath them. The songs were boring. The music was dumb. It was "babyish". They had to learn these "stupid hand moves" and sing songs that were silly and, well, just dumb. They had too many rehearsals, and heard to often that they needed to work harder and sing louder, and couldn't they put a little more heart and soul into it.

Friday's rehearsal was painful. Two classes that were going to miss the dress rehearsal on Monday afternoon went down to watch, so that they could see the show. The reviews were less than shining. Their teachers were concerned. The music teacher was concerned. Even the principal was concerned. It wasn't looking good for Monday's show at all. It's hard enough to get a group of 5th and 6th graders (with a few 4th graders thrown in for good measure) to sing as it is, and even harder to get them behind something they consider "dumb and babyish." The last show of the year (aside from the Memorial Day program) is always the older grades, and it's always a show that revolves around the curriculum. Something they are studying, and usually involving Social Studies. This show was no exception.

Dumb, Dumb, Dumb

Ever do something so dumb, that you wanted to smack your head against the wall after you did it?

Have a look at the photo to the left. (Ignore the icky windows, I don't wash the outsides during the winter and I was busy today). You'll notice that the second pane down is darker. Crisper. Missing perhaps.

I was on my way upstairs to get laundry, and the kids were tapping on the glass. After I hollered at them to knock it off, I was informed there was a moth there. So on my way by, I put my sweater up over my palm, and went to knock the window just enough to scare the moth away. Well, hundred year old glass (or 160ish if it's never been replaced) is very thin and brittle it would seem. Like in a horor movie, my hand went through that window in slow motion.

For the Birds

In honor of my peepers not becoming any worse over the last year (well, prescription wise anyhow).. I give you this:

The Link to the Knitted Peep. Someone spent last night working up the Crocheted Peep into a knitting pattern.

Enjoy.